Home for the heteronomous

Studying is essentially still this: converting stuff in books to stuff in brains. In order to do well in school you have to have a large storage and excellent read/write access to it. Very much as if processor, programming and sensitivity to context do not matter. It is like our education system is stuck in not caring about anything but our memory capacity. And so it produces the new standard uniform class of power people who have muscled memory, and the disciplined balls that go with it. I’ll try to explain why this is as unnecessary as it is bad and why it’s nevertheless unlikely to change.

The right to die after a life of laziness profiting from other people’s sweat:

You can have hundreds of measures to counteract all the immoral outcomes of capitalism. None will succeed if they don’t touch the heart of the matter: putting matter before mind. The three most important achievements in keeping morality as primary are threatened by the constant erosion from capitalism’s constant competition. Whether it is social security, access to education or human rights, there’s no Western election that can’t be won by people challenging it all as politically correct and endangering economic productivity.

Fragmenting human rights by expanding them into minute details is not the right way to go. It just makes for a pathetic left wing defensiveness that appeals only to the converted while alienating those bearing the brunt of capitalism. I propose three measures that – in my view – will guarantee that the issues are dealt with at the root. On this basis, it won’t be necessary to overly stipulate specific policies as they’ll evolve automatically as a matter of public discourse. I realize that it’s not possible to realize them as a big bang and that incremental development towards them will be required. I’ll come back to that later. For now the problem is not how to achieve this but whether, if achieved, it will suffice to capitalize on capitalism without bleeding out from its blindness.

Measure 1: universal and unqualified right to die

It is not odd to start with a basic personal right given what has been said above. I realize that this measure is the most contentious one, precisely because this ultimate individual self-determination is directly at odds with the delusion of original sin (and hence original responsibility). It shows that we don’t live to redeem ourselves or to repay some original debt. If we feel we don’t derive any value from our existence, it is our right to terminate it. Full stop. Sure, there are qualifications but these are of process, not of right. Continue reading →

The share price of liberal freedom is frankly falling. If it falls any further, we will all be flat on our faces. I think we all know by now that the problem is capitalism as we by now know it all. It is stumbling ahead, winning victory over victory mostly without putting up a hard fight. This is one of the harsh qualities it has acquired over a long time by taking the moral high ground of liberal freedom and human rights. I will not be far off the mark when I say most people have grown used to holding liberal freedom and capitalism as synonymous.

This pamphlet tries to do two things. It separates freedom and capitalism by exposing the collapse of humanity in the heartland of the free world. Evidence for this collapse is the unhappiness of free people as expressed in them voting for tyrannical cultural pessimism. People unhinged by the insecurity that is essential to capitalism are always too easily exploited by nut cases of various brands, specifically those graduating from the Harvard of sociopathy. The pamphlet further proposes three measures for a capitalist society to move on. I say move on because moving back is not only not an option, it is simply backward. As a cultural optimist I am convinced we can only move on by building on what makes us strong, not by reversing history toward a time of melancholy that never was.

The cul-de-sac of blind capitalism

Liberals promoting capitalism don’t promote freedom. The reason is simple: their view of mankind is that it needs more and more money. On this view progress is a necessary by-product of society accumulating capital in a market that, itself, is free. This is defended religiously. It’s a religious point after all. Its central tenet is that man’s original sin is laziness. In the capitalist case we can only “work it off”. If we work hard enough it will redeem generations to come. Every American Dream is just a story of redemption where an individual shows us how to atone for the evil void inside all of us. Continue reading →

First, let me thank Adam for allowing me back after a multi-year absence. I felt compelled to write this piece because I believe this election and the incoming administration is not normal. Now, I’m struggling to connect the different worlds I inhabit(ed) and move forward.

At heart, I’m an optimist — a believer in the project of America. I am not ignorant of the crimes and inhumanities that have accompanied our founding and history. But, I do believe that we are forming a more perfect union. I understand that it happens in fits and starts. That there is progress and regression. That we have a constant tension of momentum to be more egalitarian, just, and inclusive at odds with inertia to maintain a status quo of inequality, oppression, and closely held power. Overall, I agree with President Obama’s sentiment that America today is truer to its ideals than ever before. We should take pride in that while questioning our history and the pace of our progress.

Yet, the election of Donald Trump and the subsequent events of the transition period have left me with a pause in my optimism like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my adult life. The causes are multi-faceted. I am concerned about how celebrity plays into national politics, overwhelming policy and substance. I have concerns about electing someone who has lived out his life as an egomaniac and con artist. But, even these are small concerns compared to what I fear most.

My greatest fear is for America itself. I promise this is not hyperbole. My fear is based in the fact that Donald Trump was willing to leverage the worst instincts of humanity to get elected. Trump stoked the flames of racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism to gain votes for the presidency. He also threw in ridicule of persons with disabilities for good measure. And, he succeeded.

Because of his lifelong amorality and rudderlessness, no one felt comfortable saying for certain if this message was heartfelt or cynical. In fact, the campaign manipulated the media through that uncertainty. While the message of bigotry was undeniable, surrogates portrayed it as cynical and therefore not as bad as if it were genuine. Meanwhile, the candidate himself would wink and nod to the white supremacists and other hatemongers he mobilized into political action. It was rare to hear objections that the message was antithetical to American values regardless. Even in cynicism, this hateful strategy is destructive to our nation. The incredulity allowed Trump to play against pure evil and instead seem to be merely playing with the devil.

Never mind the ambiguity though. The transition period has clarified for us the true nature of the message. It was heartfelt. Trump is a hateful bigot and he intends to govern as a hateful bigot. There were clues we should not have avoided or rationalized. His choice of Mike Pence as vice president. His refusal to distance himself from white nationalists. His refusal to back down on a Muslim registry. His advertising that relied on sexist and anti-Semitic imagery. That imagery of the campaign and the “calculated” choices he made are the framework for the ideology of the transition. There is no reason to suspect they won’t be the foundation of his administration.

Trump has proposed a white supremacist for Attorney General. He named a white supremacist/anti-Semite/misogynist as his chief strategist. He has made an Islamophobe/xenophobe his national security adviser. A segregationist (of both the race and class varieties) is on his short list of possible HUD secretaries. Given the available information, the logical conclusion is that Trump intends to serve as a white supremacist in the Presidency.

We should recognize immediately that, even as a majority of the electorate, we have little hope of reaching Trump and his administration. We are not going to change their strategy or course through a resistance from the left, or even from the middle. He is too self-absorbed and too well insulated to be swayed. Congress is unlikely to be forthright when dealing with him.

Our immediate concern is to inform and interact with the Americans who voted for him so that they will not vote for him again. Our primary effort must be to expose him for the fraud he presents and the threat he poses. Because he is a threat to every American and to America itself.

The question remains, How do we engage with those who voted for Trump? I believe that many of them voted in the hopes that he would save their jobs and their towns. That he would save their way of life. That allowed them to accept a message that scapegoated, demonized, and targeted people of color, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and women. Many of us are so disgusted by their ability to ignore his hatred that it makes it difficult to forgive them for their vote. But, our nation’s future depends on our ability to confront Trump and his bigotry through dialogue with our fellow citizens. We must swallow our pride and begin conversation with them.

That doesn’t mean we should allow people a pass on hatred. We must challenge bigotry when we confront it. We must condemn those who are truly hateful. But, we must also begin by reaching out to those nearest to us and learning about their concerns and fears. It will be through these intimate moments that we can begin to find bonds of common concern as well as common aspirations.

I am aware that this is a lot easier for me to say as a person who can check every box of privilege. I don’t often need to swallow my pride. I am not faced with regular indignities. I haven’t been forced to comply with systems and norms that are different from my own norms. Trump voters aren’t likely to blame me for their problems or greet me with hatred.

Perhaps the burden I am referring to here falls primarily on people like me. People who can hopefully relate in some way to the Trump voter and begin a dialogue. I think as long as those like me check our privilege to be sure we are acting in service to social justice this could be a positive step.

I am willing to believe that some Trump voters did vote in hopes of economic change. That they felt it necessary to choose someone outside of the Washington political class.

I can imagine a perspective that sees the world moving too quickly and a feeling of being left behind. I grew up with people who I know are in situations where they don’t know how they will take part in the America of the future. Who believe that the jobs they are qualified for are disappearing and that their future looks bleak. Yes, these people are almost exclusively white, almost exclusively middle class. These old friends have parents who worked for auto companies and other heavy manufacturers where they made good wages. Their parents were the last people to have jobs in a lot of those factories. My friends and I went to college or worked an apprenticeship. For some of us, it worked out. And, as it worked out most of us, especially the college educated, left for America’s metropolises where opportunity is now concentrated. But, the jobs many of us prepared for aren’t as plentiful anymore. Especially for those who stayed in place. The unions are diminished. Our degrees are less valuable as elite jobs require post-graduate work. People accept less for the same work. They don’t seem to be able to save enough to get ahead. They wonder how they’ll ever achieve their parents’ standard of living. In the end, they find the phrase “Make America Great Again” to be a signal of hope.

Ironically, these people have a lot in common with the people I’ve gotten to know in the past 20 years. They feel targeted by “Make America Great Again.” Yes, they are largely people of color and from other marginalized groups who have the exact same fears and concerns as my childhood friends. My friends from today see different causes and blame different forces. They see a continuous blockade to most of the opportunity in America that is getting worse. Few of them had parents making incomes as large as the elders of my childhood friends. But, they recall a time when their communities were more vibrant. They can remember local stores and safer streets. They miss the togetherness of their old blocks and neighborhoods. They wonder if that will ever be their reality again. Or, if they’ll be kicked out as soon as their neighborhood becomes even modestly more livable.

It’s nothing new that these two groups are being played against each other. This is a classic American tactic most notable in the antebellum and Jim Crow South. But, it is also a common tactic of the segregated cities in the Midwest and Northeast of the 20th century. An important part of our work is to inspire solidarity between these groups. It’s something that should occur naturally. Yet, it continues to remain unfulfilled because of our social divisions, especially our racial division.

But now, we have crossed beyond a normal threshold. The election of Trump is not normal. This is not an ordinary time. At this moment in American history, we must find a way to succeed where generations before us failed.

Our task before us is critical. We cannot be passive in this crisis. We have to be willing to work hard and be uncomfortable. It’s going to be hard to challenge our white friends and explain to them the threat Trump poses, first to our friends of color and eventually to all of us. It will be hard to explain to our friends of color that we aren’t minimizing hatred when we try to understand the motivations of our white friends and connect them to the concerns we all share. We, who can navigate multiple settings, must move between and among them to find the connecting points that will bring us together.

Let’s begin by asking one another about our hopes and fears. At first, let’s listen more than we talk. Let’s find ways to challenge others while allowing them to challenge us. Let’s confront unfairness while allowing people to save face. Then, let’s start to connect people. Let’s demonstrate our commonalities. Let’s explain our different realities. Let’s build empathy and understanding. Let’s breakdown stereotypes and uplift truth.

We will each have to find methods to accomplish this work for our constellation of circles. But, we can learn from one another along the way. In other words, let’s talk to each other as well. We can gain insight and strength from our unity. Most importantly, I hope it will allow us to hasten the change we want to create.

Where do we go from here? We go outside our comfort zone. We go to new places. We go to our best nature. We go high. We go deep. We go to our core values. And, from there we can stand united to continue to form a more perfect union.

There is only one thing more stupid still than computers are: people who believe that algorithms can outsmart people. They may even see contradiction lurking in the previous sentence. That is what a lack of imagination can do to us. It makes us ignore the data and see everything bigly (probably how a pig would see it). The stress in artificial intelligence is on artificial, where intelligence itself is one and all art.

We should feel very strongly about this because it’s about us. The modern shamanism of technology has it that analytics can be predictive where it obviously can only be reactive. Algorithms do not create a single quark of novelty except by introducing the haphazard. They do not listen but just repeat so you eat your own cake over and over again until your mind is fat and lazy – zero hazard involved.

Once they stuffed us full of our own bigotry, Facebook and Google will wash their hands in innocence. It’s our stupidity, not theirs. That’s right. Wing it, you evangelists of superior complexity, who make us horny on bits, byting into the Apple of money. Wing it, by being right in creating a prophecy we can’t but fulfill playing back our stupidity until we think we are smarter than they are. Trump us up into hell.

The most important thing is this: never – never ever – leave a space at the end of a line. Fill it to the end even if you have to type ghjtrgk. Or something. Never mind whjkjkljere.

O.

You may leave space after an O.

Or an Aha.

They don’t mean anything like. They’re not important. Ghdhjk. Like me? I don’t. Well, I like the other me and he dislikes this me. Dis mie ning. Strike that. Stricken. Always correct yourself. Try that with a jkjkjk space. Should have been spspspp. Too late. Always too late to correct your self. Why write, anyway? It is not like someone will read it (except me, I’m here writing it, don’t have a choice, never hadt; even not in parentheses). What a relief, not to have to be understandable; kind of explains why you’re not not – a random string replaced by a less random still meaningless one – not not not understood.

I mean, I was planning to write this on Friday but I felt a bit off and wound up watching the tennis. Tennis is such an unimaginative sport: the same people win in the same way all of the time. I vaguely remember that some 30 years ago there were occasional outbursts that seemed to indicate this was a sport of man rather than machine. Now, only one thing is for sure: successful tennis players are no quitters. Whatever, I watched it feeling every ounce of energy being drawn from me, knowing full well I should have followed through with my plan but still giving into the fascination for nothingness which is my true addiction.

In other words: I’m a quitter.

I would normally not feel inclined to see this as a confession were it not for the blatant fact that quitting is, societally, seen as the pinnacle of anti-social behavior. Perseverance, now that is something we should all have. Whether it is the passionate entrepreneur who, after 300 pitches says to herself “I just have to change this and try harder” or the artist who has eaten dirt for decades without faltering in his single-focused follies, it is the transpiration that is admired. The patient exercise of impatience to keep on going on because the reward is worth the effort of clinging on even if is uncut misery topped with pure humiliation.

The quitter’s take: I’m rich enough to behave spoiled, so let that be my quiet rebellion.

Fritz and Sandra grew closer; feeling irresistibly attracted, to him. I was their alibi allowing them to resist the urge to get up just as they had learned when they were young puppies in social life wanting to be distinguished dogs. The urge overcome, Fritz released their tension by laughing. It sounded like a pig grunting. “Tu t’appelles Pavel.”, he repeated in an attempt to make the joke his own – adding hesitatingly: “Nius has had his best times, don’t you think?”. “No.”, I answered, “Or rather. I couldn’t compare his times.” “I meant, …”, he went on, but I did not muster the attention span to hear his no doubt masterly retort.

Sandra just sat there and didn’t listen either. She was showing every sign of puppy love and, braless, this was accentuated twice in a way that did capture my attention. What Fritz meant will remain a mystery. Nipples are, most of the times, more fascinating than meanings. Her nipples pointed in the same direction of her gaze, which made me also look at Guido who, meanwhile, was greeting his hostess in the garden. She dismissed those paid to inform the peoples with a lordly gesture. Money she had abundantly, but no money could buy her the benefit of being a host making refined gestures. Guido kissed her hand. The flashing mob came to a final orgasm after which they were chased up the stairs and out of the house by those paid – hand on ear – by, little, Aurelia Bensone. A brief electric moment underlined the exclusivity now acutely felt by those selected by invite. Guido put one foot forward to gently almost-genuflect and kiss Aurelia’s hand until the flashes died out. Then he grinned and stood up, tall, opening his arms for her to jump in. Some isolated flashes were made in full retreat. Together they made a half turn, his rough coal-shovel hands unashamedly groping her thighs. Another flash. Another. From the house photographer, no doubt. A last one. Looks became serious again. Back to business as usual. Feet on the ground. Over to the order of the night.

The sun was setting. It was still hot. ‘Why are we here?’, I asked myself – feeling out of place. The party was of the garden variety. Chaotic, it left us swimming, but not as fish. This was not our biotope; not hers, not mine, not anymore. Nothing here was organic – everyone was forced in their place.

Agnes and I were still a ‘we’ then. She was the answer to my question.

Here I was, sitting under a tree, a beautiful red beech, for the happiness of Agnes. Its deep red foliage protected me from the sun. I felt organically connected to it – like the ferns growing green in its shade. This fixation shielded me from the attention of others. Eagerly they went hither and thither. They were even more foreign to Agnes than they were to me. The odor of their sweat was all around as they were trying to connect to the hive. They belonged to another order, looking for themselves in the reflection of the others. It was a garden party – with emphasis on neither garden nor party – where the guests crawled around in Brownian motion; convinced of being part of a master plan. In my idealistic world, I remained slowly yellow, without the urge to leave the beech.

Continued from here (quotes taken from “The Claim of Reason”, Stanley Cavell, reprinted 1999, Oxford University Press).

“You don’t have to talk to everyone about everything.” (p. 197)

I’m pretty sure this was not originally intended to have a political meaning. I’ll try to give it one all the same. The problem with democracy – and, as lofty the ideal is, there clearly is a problem with democracy – isn’t that it assumes a possibility of overlapping consensus in a Rawlsian sense. The democratic problem rests entirely with its suffix: the idea that such a consensus needs to be arrived at by a public discussion involving all, resulting in external institutions exercising power in the name of the people.

Let’s unpack this.

“He (the traditional philosopher) admits as much explicitly when he says that he is, in the context of his philosophizing, using the word “see” in a special, or “stricter than ordinary” sense. He wishes to effect that reconciliation, offer that concession. And this is another way of saying that, perhaps of beginning to see why, his conclusions are “unstable”. (p. 199)